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She died while I was drinking tea.

She was a newbie at Hospice, arriving about two weeks ago, in the room next to Rich.

She died alone.

We heard her final moans, but didn't know they were her last.

"Everyone is suffering," Rich said, eyelids partly closed.

It was that sort of day. Quiet, mostly. We didn't speak much. He asked questions I couldn't answer.

"How is this different than death?" and "When will this end, E.T.?"

Tonight I assisted Theresa, another extraordinary aide, in moving Rich from the Gerry chair into bed.

"What's the difference?" he asked as the preparations began.

"Between what?"

"This and bed."

Another unanswerable question.

But the move went well. I pointed out that, for the first time in months, his feet were not swollen, the rash and peeling gone.

"As sexy as ever," I said.

At this, he smiled.

I said nothing about his matchstick-thin legs, muscle vanished. But I looked, and I will remember.

Before leaving, returning my mug to the kitchen, the undertaker passed by, rolling out what was once a person who had dreams and fears and, I hope, love. But now she was a corpse, zipped up in the velveteen burgundy bag that all the undertakers seem to have, no choice of color.

I bowed my head, and John Donne's meditation whispered: never send for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

But not, yet, for the boy next door with sexy feet and skinny legs.

There is a difference.

Candace